Sweets for my Sweet Sherbert Lemon'
by minervarette
Summary: Basically, nothing much happens except sweet fluff between Dumbledore and his deputy over a bag of sherbert lemons


Disclaimer: Minerva and Albus, Fawkes and Hagrid even (though he does not appear) belong to JK Rowling and 'Sweets for my Sweets' (I think) belongs to various bands from the Sixties called The Drifters / Animals / Searches. The one I'm thinking of comes from the Buster soundtrack. The nickname "Tabby" is borrowed from various authors that I am in total awe of.   
I'm just a lowly first time fan fic writer who needs sleep, but my new mantra is "I borrow JKR's characters, they are not mine, I just manipulate them so that I can write the story the way that I (and hopefully other AD/MM shippers want them to go). Grovel, grovel, stoop, stoop...please don't sue me...my name's Minerverette! Ha, ha, hee ho ok...'nough with the laughter at horrendously poor joke.  
  
This is my first attempt at fluffy fan fic - so be nice. Please don't flame me!  
  
Summary:  
Basically, nothing but fluff happens between Dumbledore and his deputy over a bag of sherbert lemons!  
  
Sweets for my Sweet... Sherbert Lemon   
  
Albus Dumbledore dropped his eyes from watching his deputy headmistress' brow, furrowed with characteristic concentration, as she checked over the list of the forthcoming first years and their timetables.   
  
It was a balmy summer night and Hogwarts was bathed with the light of the sunset. The faint strains of an enchanted Muggle radio from Hagrid's hut could be heard drifting across the hazy air. The sun's dying rays reflected off Minerva's ebony hair so that the almost looked as if it was awash with shiny, dark, electric blue.   
  
Slowly, to distract himself from the fond affection that washed over him at this sight, Albus let his hand slide into his desk drawer to pilfer his favourite Muggle indulgence: sherbert lemons.   
  
'Allbuss,' Minerva threateningly purred, without even looking up from her checklist. 'You and your sweets,' she said ever exasperated with the headmaster's infatuation with Muggle sweeties.  
  
'How did you guess?' Albus replied indignantly, with the look of a naughty school boy.   
  
Taking a side-ways glance upwards, Minerva could not help the ever so slight tug of smile around her mouth, before directly looking into those sparkling, and now slightly sheepish, twinkling blue eyes.   
  
'Albus, even without transfiguring into a cat, I can hear you rustling sweet papers a mile off. Don't think I haven't seen and heard you slyly popping lemon drops into your mouth to suck during staff meetings,' she teased, a spark dancing in her eyes.  
  
'Well, I won't tell on me, if you won't!', he twinkled back.  
  
'Answer me this, Albus. Why the addiction to Muggle sweets?  
  
'Ah, now that, my dear professor, would be telling,' he said playfully, looking directly back at her as she turned her head to one side, trying to fathom out what was making his eyes dance behind his fixed look over his half-mooned spectacles. They were closer than most friends or colleagues and she had the ability to read his mind. However, on this particular day even she was uncertain about what lay behind his usual benevolent, wise expression.  
  
They stayed like that for a moment, and as quickly as their flirtatious mood had taken them from companiable silence, the moment passed. Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore simultaneously tried to break the silence,   
'If you'll just -...'  
'My dear, prof-' Both fell back in their chairs and smiled.   
  
'Great minds ...'  
  
'... Think alike...', Dumbledore finished McGonagall's sentence without thinking and caught her wry smile.   
  
'Like an old married couple', each of them respectively thought and quickly buried the notions as soon as it arose to the surface of the consciousness. Their relationship was in many respects like a marriage - the difference being that they were close colleagues that had a deep affection for each other which they could not take beyond anything further than platonic. However, there is something worse than unrequited love; that is unspoken requited love, but in may ways this made their relationship as equally as boundless in its nature.   
  
'Ladies first,'  
  
'I insist, Albus , say what you have say.'  
  
'Oh, very well, my dear. What I was going to propose was that we give this a rest and enjoy each other's company over a friendly game of chess.'  
  
'I can't guarantee that it'll stay totally friendly - you know how competitive I am.'  
  
"Yes, I do, and I've heard Severus' rants about "that lioness roaring about her precious Gryffindors.'"  
  
"Albus, you and I both know that although I delight in Gryffindor's achievements I would not take that much pleasure in rubbing Severus' nose in it."  
  
"No, you'd take every pleasure in it!"  
  
Minerva fixed a "yes, but I'll deny it under pain of death" look on Dumbledore and said, "I'll go and get the new chess board that Miss Granger and company presented to me at the end of term."  
  
As McGonagall swept out of his office, Dumbeldore's eyes followed her and rested upon Fawkes whose wings were glowing within the slowly sinking sun. He thoughtfully reached into his drawer and liberated the bag of sherbert lemons and walked around to the bird that looked him expectantly in the eye. Stroking Fawkes' head, Dumbledore sighed and turned to his devoted pet phoenix.  
  
"Fawkes, if only she knew".... "The reason why I'm so fond of sherbert lemons is because they remind me of her," he paused and chuckled to himself and then answered the bird's inquisitive eyes. 'They're sharp, bitter-sweet, have a tough shell but when it cracks they are really soft underneath. ... and she certainly fizzes with fury at times, but I find it strangely endearing. Bantering with her certainly makes you feel.... alive." Then, in a heartfelt, absent way, he murmured, "I wonder if that's what her kiss would taste like..."  
  
"Talking to yourself, or Fawkes, Albus?" Minerva said softly as she reached his side. "Either way, it proves that you're a daft, old professor... but your heart's always in the right place." "Although," she added with serious mirth, "I do hope you're not trying to feed the poor creature those," she pointed at the bag of sweets now in Dumbledore's hand.   
  
Albus, startled, looked for the briefest moment that words would, for once in a lifetime, escape him, before he managed to mutter,   
  
"You know, Tabby, you take on more of your animagi qualities by the decade. I didn't hear you come in ... you shouldn't sneak up on people. "  
  
"Apparently so," she primly countered, glancing at the sweet bag, "but I don't sneak anywhere, misplaced your omniscient ability to know what's going on, Mr. Know It All, although I'm glad you're referring to me now as a witch that can transfigure into a cat , rather than anything else!"  
  
The words escaped her mouth before she realised she had even said them and inwardly winced. This time it was both the professors turns to turn face each other in shocked amazement. Irretrievable things had been said; there was not going back - and they both knew it. Minerva tried to recover herself, but had seemed to have temporarily lost her usual quick wittedenss.   
  
Finally, she nervously cleared her through and sighed, 'Well, you know, due to my animagus form I have got good hearing.' Without batting an eye, Albus did the only thing that he could think of doing at the precise moment,  
"Sherbert lemon", he offered feebly.  
  
"Well, I have heard they're an acquired taste", Minerva murmured with breathless bewilderment as Albus, a smile spreading across his face, took a step towards her, giving her the bag and tentatively resting one hand on her shoulder and other cupping her cheek with the other, looking into her eyes and gently kissing her lips.   
  
"But I think I could learn to live with them," she softly whispered, wrapping her arms around his neck as their first sweet kiss deepened.  
  
As they slightly pulled apart, still looking into each other's eyes, an old song drifted through the window and this time they smiled with their eyes at each other as the words lifted up and over the rooftop of the castle and melded a more powerful form of enchantment than any old spell:  
......Sweets for my sweets,   
And sugar for my honey,  
That first sweet kiss,  
Thrilled me so........... 


End file.
